


love in my arms (sun in my eyes)

by Shenanigans



Category: Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Revelations, boys suck at talking, cloning, is this fluff?, unbetaed we die like robins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: Tim should have been concerned about how many of his friends were unsurprised by his moral swan dive  into ethically gray or the fact that he'd made a kid with Kon's DNA and his own in a depressive spiral.He just wasn't.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 72
Kudos: 310





	love in my arms (sun in my eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a wildly self indulgent little thing that I can't let myself linger in too long, so I'm tossing it into the world like this.

Tim was being watched. He didn't have to open his eyes, years of training made him aware of it before he let himself move. He usually took a breath, a moment to center in the dark before the alarm from his Delphi system clicked over and started to slowly raise the lights. "I can hear you breathing."

There was a giggle from four inches above the bed and Tim had two seconds to launch into action, catch the toddler where he had been hovering and roll to the side. He had two seconds before whatever devious prank his son was planning would unfold. Tim almost wanted to see what he had planned. 

The Delphi starts speaking, a slow low-toned British Alto detailing his day when Tim struck, catching the boy around his ticklish ribs and rolling into his morning with a bright smile. Waking up had gotten easier.

He doesn't have to convince himself to take a breath and keep moving. He doesn't have to convince his heart to keep beating. His son laughs and the day dawns anew.

**

They're sitting back to back in the soft San Francisco sunshine and Kon was warmer through the fabric of his shirt than it's golden touch. Tim's working on homework, Trig that he's working ahead on to make sure even if he misses nights he won't be noticeable as anything other than a completely normal high school student. He could feel Kon's shoulderblades shifting as he tossed a ball idly to the superdog that kicked wake across the bay and only detoured slightly to chase seals before dropping it by Kon's thigh. It's an easy rhythm that holds a backbeat to the roll clatter of Bart scooping back and forth on his skateboard.

"I can _hear_ you thinking," Tim stated finally, not looking up from his math. He does it in pen on graph paper so if he makes a mistake he can't forget it, he can't simply erase it and pretend it didn't happen.

"You grow a superpower when I wasn't looking?" Kon asked, tilting his head to the side and Tim tried not to swallow at the brief scuff of stubble against the shell of his ear.

"Yes." Tim smirked, finishing his set and moving to the next without pausing. "It's called being your friend, Clone Boy."

"Rude." Kon snickered before scooting along the edge of the roof slightly, unafraid of falling and Tim wasn't afraid either. He was never afraid with Kon close. He let himself unfold a little, adjusting to the way Kon dropped his head back onto his shoulder and sprawled. Tim wet his lips and didn't turn, kept his eyes down and his focus tight on the Trig. 

"I'm waiting."

"Fine. Whatever. _Jerk_." The roof had a brief moment of quiet as Bart kicked up into a handplant before tucking and rolling back into the restless back and forth the other boy used as meditation. "Clark was supposed to come to dinner."

"Ah."

"I know I shouldn't be disappointed or whatever, but I mea-"

"Why?" Tim stopped writing and kept himself still as he interrupted. "Why shouldn't you be disappointed?"

Kon was rarely silent, filling the space between them with idle chatter or soft laughter at whatever he was watching. He filled spaces, filled rooms, filled Tim's world up with an easy companionship. The lulls usually meant that Kon felt safe. Tim could hear Cassie talking to Kori down in the garden, the soft feminine voices drifting to bounce up the side of the tower between the glass and the trees. Out over the bay, he could hear the idle yelps of the sea lions on the pier and the restless gulls squabbling and calling endlessly for more.

"I just wish..." Kon frowned, it turned his voice into a soft edged baritone, less deep bass than he tried for usually. This was Kon unguarded. "I just wish he _wanted_ me, man."

**

Tim watched Jackson in the mirror while he shaved. His kid was a mess of untidy cowlicked black hair, wide serious blue eyes that are two shades more vivid than his own, and a line of concentration pulled between his black brows as he brushed his teeth. He looked like Kon and Tim had to look away before he nicked himself. 

His boy was five years old and hovering lightly next to the second sink in the master bath, the water running as he concentrated on his task. His bottom tooth was loose and he was focused on taking care of it to make sure he got the highest return on investment from the Tooth Fairy. Tim kept an eye on the fingers the boy had curled into the edge of the sink like a tether, feet drifting back and forth as he leaned in to the mirror to inspect his work with a critical eye before floating back, never quite landing.

"He flies," Tim had informed Tam one morning when he showed up for a board meeting with a black eye and deep circles smudged below the bruise. 

"Oh," Tam had blinked, wetting her lips and reorganizing his morning visibly before nodding once and handing him a coffee without reproach. "That's new."

Tim had designed the creche straps instead of attending the stockholder meeting. Jackson and Kon were both hard to keep tethered to the ground, but Tim would try. Tim had tried.

"All done," Jackson announced after spitting and ducking his head to gulp water from the faucet before Tim could stop him, spinning midair like a swimmer making a turn in a long lane and pushing to zip towards the kitchen. Tim would have about two minutes to finish, throw his long hair into a half bun, and follow before the boy would get bored and get into trouble.

Tim was used to this too.

**

The lab had been dark until he walked through the door, each light flickering once before holding at a steady low glow that wouldn't affect the amniotic fluid in each test cylinder. The data feed on the simulations was scrolling, the nitrogen cooled computers keeping the room balmy despite the high tech refrigeration. He could see that the first batch had failed, the waters gone black at the lack of movement and continued signs of life. He swallowed his disappointment and reached to unhook his cape, the fabric dropping with a weighted speed that he caught before the armor around the neck could crack against the tile floors. 

Tim draped it carefully across the back of the chair before pulling the gauntlets to set next to the modified keyboard. "Delphi, progress report."

"Initial subjects 1-25 have been marked as complete. Initial coding deemed: failure. Second clutch 26-50 are showing similar markers for protein lapse that leads to rna breakdown and full unravel after reaching stage 2 processing. The protein bath component stabilizes for a period of seventeen minutes longer than the initial data line."

Tim frowned. "Delphi, run simulations on stability after secondary protein wash."

"Acknowledged. Simulations running, results expected in 72 hours." The soft smooth alto paused and Tim closed his eyes. "All projected results continue to result in failure. Are you sure you want to proceed with experiment routine SB-231?"

"Yes."

"Acknowledged. Experiment routine set to continue." There was a brief pause as the AI ran a soft subroutine. “Would you like the subroutine 42 to begin?”

Tim wants to sleep. He wants to sleep and close his eyes and forget for one minute that his world is cinders. He wants to close his eyes and slip into the darkness that could linger in his mind. He wants to close his eyes and wake up in a world where Kon is screaming insults at Bart over a rabid game of mario kart. 

Tim wants deeply, but he's used to disappointment. Instead, he opens his eyes and pushes the rolling chair away from the desk to the next set of test tubes to begin the secondary set of possible clones. He has a moment where he wishes he hadn't been so noble, when he wishes he hadn't destroyed the information to keep Lex from being able to recreate the experiment.

He'd been willing to go toe to toe against Lex Luthor for Kon. 

The test tubes have blue plastic tops and neat barcode labels to keep track of the sample set and the green coded control. There's one red topped vial that he doesn't let himself think about. It's a failsafe.

“No.” Tim tells himself he'd never use it. Tim knows he's a liar.

**

"Are we doing waffles or cereal?" Tim asked Jackson as he stared into the double wide fridge that Alfred kept stocked despite Tim's protests. The waffle maker had been a belated baby shower gift from Stephanie when she's shown up alive and contrite on his doorstep when Jackson was almost three.

"I hear you had a kid," she had said, rubbing a finger along the edge of her eyebrow, fiddling with a scar there before shrugging and shoving the badly wrapped box into his hands. "You look like shit."

"You look alive," he'd managed, voice a thrumming low annoyance.

She had grinned, wide and perfect and he'd forgiven her, like always. Stephanie Brown had been the human equivalent of a brick to the face and he wasn't about to let that stop him from keeping her as close as possible as long as possible. She'd taken one look at Jackson where the toddler was hovering absently and chewing on a block and glanced over at Tim. She'd understood before he did.

"This explains _so much_ , Boy Wonder." She had squeezed past him into the penthouse, grabbing his kid by an ankle. Jackson had giggled and floated along as she toted him like a balloon. "I am just glad that I now have a better explanation of why you kept falling asleep when we were getting hot and heavy other than I was obviously boring and bad at sex."

"You could never be boring."

"And you were in love with someone else."

Tim had closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. "It wasn't a mystery I felt like solving at the time."

"And now?"

"Now he's dead and this is my life." Tim had shrugged and ignored the look in Stephanie's eyes.

"Waffles." Jackson was sitting at the table, perched up on his knees and coloring. He had his tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth and Tim had to look away. 

"Okay. Waffles it is."

**

Tim had always looked for Kon first. He was breathing heavily, shoulder wrenched and probably dislocated as he stood planted at the edge of a row of scorch marks where the robots had been trying to burn Robin out of existence. The damage had been kept to this nearly abandoned area in the docks north of San Francisco proper. He was scanning the sky, panting around the taste of blood in his mouth and ignoring the way his body was screaming. He had to find Kon first. It was ridiculous, he knew that empirically, to worry about a boy that could fly, a boy who couldn't really be hurt. Hell, Kon was the one who dove in front of Robin regularly.

"You're a badass," Kon had told him one night around a ridiculously large bite of the pizza he was shoving into his face. "But you're really kind of fragile, you know?" 

Tim had frowned and plucked a bit of cheese from the pizza, chewing idly. "I can take-"

Kon had rolled his eyes so hard the toppings had slid right off the slice and onto the paper plate in his other hand. "I know you can, Rob. I'm not an idiot." He'd shrugged and used the crust to scoop the pile of melted cheese and toppings back into his mouth. "But I'm still gonna."

Tim was using his bo as a crutch, blinking at the way his HUD only seemed to be functioning in his left eye, the right hazy and flickering. He touched the comm in his ear, silent as the sky continued to rain the sparking bits of bots. "Superboy?"

It took him longer than he was comfortable with to realize his mask lens was broken and that gray flickering ash filled sight was the world in front of him.

" _Kon_?" He had whispered it, heart and lungs caught until he heard the building to his right heave, not just the block of cement, but the whole rubble pile as it shifted and rocked outward.

" _Fuck_!"

"Report."

"I'm fine, just," he watched as Kon grumbled out from under the impossible pile of rebar, glass, and cement. "That was my favorite shirt, damnit." Kon kicked the shredded metal of a nearby inert bot so hard the head was probably flung into orbit. “Assholes.”

Tim had almost smiled.

**

Tim should have been concerned about how many of his friends were unsurprised by his moral swan dive into ethically gray or the fact that he'd made a kid with Kon's DNA and his own in a depressive spiral.

He just wasn't. 

Instead, he was staring at the boy who was crashed out against Jason Todd’s thigh. Jackson was asleep on his small bed in the shitty apartment he'd been using as a bolt hole safe house. Tim was staring at his son’s thick glossy black hair and the way his rosebud mouth would pucker up and suckle at nothing in his sleep before smoothing out again. He was staring at the smooth golden skin and the perfect half moon cuticles and little hands. He found himself doing that more often than he’d ever considered necessary. 

The boy had stolen his entire attention from the moment he’d woken up and frowned bitterly, the same incredibly expressive frown that Kon made when someone woke him up from a deep sleep. He’d been transfixed at the way the kid had just owned him so completely in a way he’d never considered possible. 

"Ten fingers," he'd whispered as he watched the child shift in sleep under the blue blanket. "Ten toes."

Jason had found him first. 

"What the actual fuck is that, Replacement?" Red Hood had pointed at the kid in his arms, voice registering something panicky and shocked even through the voice modulator. "Is that a fucking kid? Where the fuck did that come from? You can't keep it!"

"I can. His name is Jackson." Tim had sniffed, the decision instantaneous once he acknowledged that he'd already made it. "He's my son."

"You're twelve and a half, Timbers. There's no fucking way you-"

"I'm almost eighteen you ridiculous over-dramatic-dead-drama-nerd."

Jason had lifted a hand, pressing at a release and the helmet cracked open like a shell, his face flushed, eyes bright with a few lividity lines where the internal padding pressed against his skin, and hair matted into sweat damp curls against his skull. "Sassy."

Tim had pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned. "I’m just tired."

"You're always tired."

Tim had ducked to glance down at where the kid was finally passed out against his chest; he was still bouncing his weight slightly as they talked to keep the somnolent weight against him. "And you're always a dick, so get to the point. What do you need, Hood?"

"Well," Jason was frowning, hood dangling from his fingers in Tim's kitchen where he'd clambered in the window. "I was going to ask for your help trying to hack into the Cave so I didn’t have to talk to Captain Dickhead. Now, I just want to hold the fuckin' kid." He set the helmet aside. "Gimme."

Tim hadn't counted on Jason being Jackson's first official babysitter. Tim's life had taken a turn for the surreal and he was just moving forward. Jason would settle the boy on his hip and wander through Tim's kitchen with a deep scowl on his face, saying nothing. Tim was too tired to care.

Today, Jason was asleep slumped against the wall, one large hand on Jackson's back, the other holding a battered paperback. Jason was too big to fit on the small twin Tim had been using, folded awkwardly to make room for where Jackson was starfished under the blanket. Tim knew the moment the other man woke up, the way he didn't move, didn't shift, just opened his eyes and looked at him. 

"Ten fingers," Tim told him with a shrug. 

"Yeah, you're a fuckin' genius." Jason frowned into waking up, wincing a little as he unwound from the uncomfortable slump and stood. For such a big man, he moved silently and Jackson didn't even shift as Tim moved over to let him out of the room. "Get a bigger place you asshole. I'm tired of waking up with a jacked up neck."

Tim blinked and looked around the small apartment, the tangle of gear and barren floorboards. He'd frowned and then looked over at Jason in the vague streetlight that seeped in through the bare windows. "Okay."

Jason nodded and grabbed his hood. "Genius."

"Thank you."

"Whatever." Jason always left as abruptly as he came.

**

Kon was pressed against his front and Tim had to force himself to keep his eyes open, to hold still, and to not turn slightly into the radiating warmth of his body. Kon always moved to cover him. Kon was always putting himself between Tim and trouble.

Kon was always there. Kon was-

**

Jackson was five years old and wearing kid's blue jeans, tiny chuck taylor's, and a black t-shirt that just said RAD in bright blocky red letters. He was smiling under the shaggy black hair that couldn't decide whether it wanted to curl or cowlick, the one in the front refusing any taming. He had thickly lashed blue eyes, one dimple in the corner of his clever smile, and the entire city of Gotham wrapped around his small strong fingers. 

His son was brilliant, impossibly sunny for Gotham's overcast temperament. 

"He reminds me of Master Dick," Alfred had commented one night, apropos of nothing as Tim had cupped a mug of hot chocolate between his fingers and worried at the kitchen table. Alfred's moustache had twitched, smile flickering bright and cheered before settling to the more respectable closed mouthed curve. "Irrepressible and kind."

"He's going to be spoiled. We're making a monster."

"I would disagree, Master Timothy." Alfred had tipped his head, blinking once. "A young man must be loved exactly for who he is."

"And not who he was supposed to be?" Tim wet his lips, watching the man.

"One must never assume to know the future." Alfred plucked the empty plate of cookies to take to the sink. "Sons will always exceed any expectations."

"Yours have changed the world," Tim stated into the silence that followed.

Alfred didn't answer but Tim knew he understood.

**

When Tim drinks he ends up on the balcony of his penthouse talking to the sky. He doesn't do it often, refuses more than a sip or two of champagne at the functions and leaves the conciliatory whiskey in the cut crystal tumblers in the bars that some people prefer to board rooms.

He ends up maudlin and buzzing under his skin, palms aching for a heat that doesn't exist in the world. Not anymore.

"I came home today and Jason had him in one of your old shirts." Tim sniffs, swiping at his eyes with the back of a wrist. He's down to dress slacks, black socks, and his soft white undershirt. He left the jacket in the hallway, the shirt somewhere in the kitchen after the tie was dropped to pool on the island. His shoes are two feet apart from each other next to the couch and the coffee table respectively. His belt is by the liquor cabinet and the cap to the vodka is just inside the sliding door to the patio balcony. "I had to go to this fucking party after that, Kon. Can you believe this shit? Like, how do people do this? How do they function?"

He sighed, watching the way parts of his city would throb with color in the ancient flashes of neon from the signs littered throughout the darkness. He could see the spotlights threading back and forth from the museum, the gala still rolicking after he'd excused himself.

"Don't answer," he managed, voice cracking. "That was rhetorical."

He closed his eyes and let the world spin in a slow drunken crawl, listing to the right in a long easy tilt that would eventually roll him onto his side, head tipped against the tiled terrace. "Ten fingers, Kon. Ten toes. He's perfect."

"You can't do this," Cassie had told him, pale blond hair slightly greenish in the light of the lab. She was looking at him in something caught between concern and fear. "It wouldn't be him."

"It would be _something_ , Cassie. I have to. I can't-" 

"He's not you," he told the sky. "But he's _something_."

**

"He's enough," Tim said, not looking away from where his son was skimming his hands along the backs of a neat row of toy cars. He glanced over at where Dick Grayson was watching him tightly. 

There was a frown line cutting lightly between his heavy black brows, bright blue eyes radiating concern. Dick was tired, a weariness that weighed his shoulders and kept his feet flat on the ground. The muscle it took to wear the suit started to broaden his chest, thicken his arms. The cowl was heavy and Dick was wearing it alone without the soft chirruping joy of a lighthearted child at his side. 

Damian was another weight as far as Tim was concerned, but he was starting to understand. He knew the soft eyed look of love from the inside now. He understood that when it came to his son he would go _further_ and push _harder_.

Dick looked at Damian like that. Tim just wished the kid would understand the gift that it was.

"Okay, little brother," Dick had breathed, exhaling and slinging an easy arm around Tim's shoulders to pull him close. Tim wished it was enough. He was giving up everything for his son and Dick could only let him and hug him through the pain of it.

For once, Tim understood that Dick had done the same for Damian. "Is he getting better?"

"Every damn day," Dick told him. Dick didn't hesitate when he knew something was true.

**

The first time Tim lets himself cry is when Cassandra reaches out to touch two knuckles just right to a tense ball of pain he's been carrying just under his heart. She doesn't say anything. She never needed words.

He feels the way it breaks something loose, like snapping the ice from around a branch in winter. He feels the way it wells up in him, a grief so terrifying and overwhelming he's sure he won't survive it. He feels it in a rush that sweeps cold then hot through him and panics against the hard palm she is using to hold him to the wall. He's gasping, lungs taut and eyes burning as he drowns in it.

Cass watches him with eyes full of love and understanding. She could kill him like this. She could. He thinks this grief just might kill him.

He sobs until he feels like he might just survive this. He sobs until he thinks just maybe he can live without him.

Cass nods and cups his face, thumbing the wet tracks of tears from his cheeks and ducks to kiss him once- uncompromising and without demand. She touches his forehead with hers and he remembers that he's not alone.

**

"Incoming." 

Dick’s voice overriding the music on Delphi is the only warning he has before the sonic boom rattles the windows of his penthouse. He looks at where Jackson is napping, face first and flushed on the couch. He gets up, setting his work aside and moves to the balcony and closes the sliding door behind him before he acknowledges where Superman is hovering in the full red and blue glory in the light drizzle of the day.

"You had no right," Clark begins and Tim closes his eyes and turns, taking a quick step closer and lifting his chin to drop all pretense and face the man who the world looks at as the symbol of hope but Kon could only see as an endless and constant symbol of his shortcomings.

Worse, the constant reminder of his terrible wrongness. 

"You are going to listen, because I am only going to say this one time." Tim knows his face is flat and devoid of emotion, a charming mask of utter calm he's practiced and perfected over the last twenty years. "You failed him in every way that truly matters. Hell, you would save the world but for him you barely tried. You will not ever do anything to make my son feel like he is an abomination or anything other than the perfect piece of my heart that he is. You will not look at him sideways. You will not raise your voice. You will never utter words he could consider a blow to who he is." Tim tilted his head and continued, holding a hand to stop anything that Clark would say.

"Lex Luthor will never get his hands on him. He has the full backing of Gotham's protectors behind him. He will never know the pain of being unwanted and you will leave here and never come back if you cannot be a part of his life in a meaningful way. You do not have to be related to him, but you will accept him. He is alive. He is perfect.

"Bruce had contingencies. He would never carry them out against his friend." Tim stared at Superman and held his ground. " _We_ aren't friends. Understood?"

“Are you threatening me?” Clark's mouth thinned before he sighed and settled onto the balcony.

“Absolutely.” Tim didn’t blink. This was too important. “Now, would you like to meet my son?"

**

Tim is on the playground in Grant Park, watching Jackson jump nimbly from bar to bar on the playset. The ground is soft, springy shredded rubber that gets hosed down and sanitized once a week. The metal monument spirals around and folds in on itself, lolling lazily into wide polished slides and a few swingsets. It's late autumn and Jackson is in a beanie that covers his dark hair, a pair of battered jeans and a sweater over the soft cotton undershirt. He's shrieking happily and chasing another set of kids around the playground in an intricate and confusing game of tag.

He only has two seconds of prickled awareness before the bottom falls out of his life in one confused syllable.

"Tim?"

The park smells like fall, the vague musty sweet of fallen leaves, cold water, and the world curling up to sleep for winter. He can hear the screams of the children like it's through a tunnel, echoing to where he is standing. He knows that he hasn't moved, that nothing has changed. He has a three fifteen board meeting and an R&D dinner at seven over at Ophelia's. It's a small bistro that doesn't believe in table cloths, pretension, or sitting quietly and waiting for the world to keep up with it's culinary talent. Tim loved it. He loved the modest wine list and the small plates. He loved the genius of it and had been looking forward to the dinner.

He'd promised to bring Jason back a copy of the menu so he could experiment at home. It was part of the price for the sitting tonight.

There's a man chasing a fluffy golden retriever in the green space to his right, the golden fur bright in the late autumn sun that slants his shadow out in front of him. He can see the second shadow, impossibly higher than him and broad. 

Tim faced down death but he was terrified to turn around.

Kon never really waited for Tim to be ready. He landed and moved, reaching out to turn him around and Tim was looking up at blue eyes so bright he wondered how he could have forgotten the color.

It was an impossible blue.

Kon was standing in front of him in uniform, the black and red and blue belted like he'd gone back in time and taken himself more seriously. His black hair curled, long on the top and flopping into his face, the spit curl cowlicking in the same place just above his right eyebrow and black leather jacket highlighting the breadth of his shoulders in relation to his narrow hips. 

"You took out the earring," he heard himself say.

Kon grinned, crooked and Tim had to remind himself to breathe. He touched his ear, face scrunching up around a shrug. "Not exactly how I expected this conversation to go, not gonna lie."

Tim did very few things without thought, but he'd never remember how he got into Kon's arms. He was standing struck dumb in the watery autumn light catching blue highlights in Kon's hair and then he was clutching him, face buried in the crook of his neck. 

"You're alive."

"Still the world's greatest detective, I see."

Tim wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a sob that broke from him.

"Hey, Rob," Kon breathed, heat perfect and close, caught against Tim's cheek. 

"Hey, Clone Boy."

"Miss me?"

"You have no idea-" Tim felt the moment the ttk reached out to hold him, the press settling an anxiety and loneliness he thought he'd left behind. He took his first full breath in five years, tasting Kon's skin and hauling closer as they lifted lightly into the air. "Jesus, _Kon_."

"Dad?"

Tim startled back into the present. He startled back into his own body and almost out of the hug to turn and look at where Jackon was frowning around the fingers in his mouth, black hair curling around his beanie, t-shirt under the cute oversized sweater and face flushed. He’s so beautiful Tim can barely breathe, his kid just standing there looking confused and perfect. He can feel Kon stiffen against him, can feel the moment Kon stops breathing. He lets himself have two seconds of shame and regret and fear before pulling his composure around himself as easily as he used to pull the cape into a shadow.

“Hey, kiddo. What’s up?” He pulled back and it felt like stepping out of the last warm sun on a winter day, like he was leaving a part of himself behind as he moved to hunker in front of his kid.

“Who-?”

“Who’s that?” Jackson asked at the same time Kon started to speak.

“The love of my life,” Tim answered them both.

**

Tim had lived with ten thousand perfect regrets after Kon died. He’d lived with the perfect and present memory of everything he’d done instead of what he could have done.

He tortured himself with moments when he could have been brave.

Kon is sitting on his couch, sprawled into the corner with both broad thighs spread and a bowl of popcorn at his hip and his eyes firmly stuck on where Jackson is passed out red faced and boneless across the floor. Tim can see how he's staring at the kid's palm where it's curled. He can see the way Kon is staring.

"Ten fingers," Tim hears himself say without anything like permission from his head. "Ten toes."

Kon looks over at him, face turning to him before his eyes follow and for the first time Tim has no idea what the other boy is thinking. 

He finds he doesn't care.

Kon is beautiful in a way that Tim has never been able to let himself really think about- just knows in a sure way that settles like Truth into his bones. He's sprawled on the couch and he's alive. Tim is moving before he can let himself think. He knows he is why nothing ever happened. He knows it's his fault. He knows Kon died because-

"Kon," he says and the one syllable breaks right down the center as he puts a palm on Kon's thigh, the other settling lightly against his jaw. He waits, heart beating so hard he can hear it. He can hear it in his ears and it doesn't matter that he's not playing the part anymore- that he's just naked right now in a way that he's never let himself be since-

"Tim?"

He can see all of them, every single mistake he's ever made in this moment. They sit high in his chest, high in the forefront of his mind. Every tense second of breath between them that could have been. He can see the moments that Kon looked at him in the dark. He can see the moments when he could have had this. He looks for Kon first. Kon was already looking back. 

Tim makes a noise like he's breaking and leans forward to kiss him first, but Kon is already kissing him back.

**

Kon pushes the words against the nape of his neck, the weight of him perfect, the heat of him impossible. “I think we did this backwards, dude.”

Tim reaches down, fingers messy and laces them into the perfect strength of Kon’s where they’re curled around his hip. He huffs a laugh and closes his eyes as Kon’s mouth forgets it was speaking and starts moving in soft lazy kisses.

“I don’t really care.” He arches slightly, gratified at the low gravel growl that rumbles in Kon’s chest. “Now _move_.”

“Bossy.”

**

Tim was being watched. He didn't have to open his eyes, years of training made him aware of it before he let himself move. He usually took a breath, a moment to center in the dark before the alarm from his Delphi system clicked over and started to slowly raise the lights. "I can hear you breathing."

“Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> I will literally make slappy table hands at every bit of love sent my way like a toddler playing in puddles.


End file.
